[iDC] Introduction

[Trebor Scholz]

As I will be away from email for the next few days, let me respond to this
quickly.

Thanks for pointing to the Fissured Workplace, Frank, that's a really
excellent book and a great read for everyone who is curious about the
switch to contingent work. And of course, the wage fixing that Google and
Facebook  engaged in, shows that even among the most privileged, employment
is by no means a quixotic hideaway.  But while we know that,  this should
not mean that we argue that the horse is out of the barn,  that employment
is a thing of the past, and that we should rush to embrace ad hoc work.

  I also think that the social vision that you point to in the end, that of
replacing a large swath of employees with contingent laborers,  is very
much a shift that is under way.

This is also a dynamic that is at play when companies like TaskRabbit are
restructuring what used to be known as the temp economy. Or think of oDesk,
which now claims to have 8 million worker accounts. These are not just
incumbents in the labor market, they are in fact shaping the nature of
work. Erin Hatton has a lot to say about the Permanent Temp Economy.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/the-rise-of-the-permanent-temp-economy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0


And Ted, #DL14 will, in fact, address the situation of adjunct faculty and
many other things that are dismally wrong within the Academy.

But beyond such critique and the acknowledgement of our own position, we
hope to inspire people to think, design, and shape new forms of association
and solidarity, to take cues from #FloodWallStreet, and artists like
Natalie Bookchin who links the proliferation of digital networks to the
increasing spread of poverty (http://longstory.us).
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